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New bilingual "green" charter in Dupont accepting apps in January, any info?
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Anonymous
| If my kids were not already very happy at one of the other excellent charter schools mentioned above, I'd be applying to this school. |
Anonymous
| Just wondering -- is this school more appealing than DC Bilingual started by the well-established program, Centronia? The green aspect? This idea sounds interesting but it is of course unproven at this point. |
Anonymous
I've heard mixed reviews of DC Bilingual/Centronia. It seems to have a nice community, but the scores are pretty poor. In any event, Mundo Verde, being new, is probably easier to get into. |
Anonymous
| Semi-hijack. My apologies, OP. Has anyone heard about the possible location of Inspired Teaching Demonstration PCS? |
Anonymous
If they've found one, it's not posted on their website. It just says they want to be centrally located and metro or metrobus accessible. (That sounds like what most schools want, so they may have to go to the back of the line.) Opening serving 152 students, 3 y.o. through 3rd grade and growing to 8th. Applications will be available in October 2010, due March 25th, 2011. Lottery (if there is one) April 6th, notifications April 8th. See for yourself, there's a pretty rich website including a collaborative blog by the teachers: http://www.inspiredteaching.org/news.php?id=325 BTW, apparently their phone number is 202.462.1956. Their office is at 14th and U, NW. |
Anonymous
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BTW, if anyone's curious about the other charters that are opening next fall, one is a high school and the other is a Pre-school to K Montessori program that is designed specifically to address the needs of "under-served" students (their words from their summary). Shining Stars Montessori Academy will try to open in Pleasant Plains/Howard U neighborhoods and serve children from the surrounding area. It will eventually serve children up to 6th grade.
Unlike Mundo Verde and Ctr for Inspired Teaching, it looks like they're specifically targeting lower SES students to close the achievement gap. They'll have a 200 day school year. |
Anonymous
| Kindergarden, huh? |
Anonymous
Charter's cannot select students in anyway but via lottery. So, this school might say it is aimed at SES but that does not mean anything. Because of the sibling preference the first crop of students has a strong influence on the demographics of the school. Perhaps Shining Star can focus on lower SES by saying that is their aim, which will "scare away" the white middle class parents. Mundo verde can advertise more heavily to middle class parents and the demographics of the founders will also have an influence, but it is going to be the lottery in those first few years that makes the difference. |
Anonymous
Of course. No-one suggested otherwise. All they can do is tell you what their plans are, what their curriculum is, how they've designed their program, etc. It's up to you whether or not you want to apply. There are now literally dozens of data points in the form of individual schools which provide examples of how they target the families which are interested in their programs. The system seems to work pretty well. The school is being very forthcoming when they say: The Academy will transform education for at-risk children ages 3-12 in the District of Columbia by combining the Montessori Method with an educational model that uses social justice and cultural empowerment as the foundation for improving academic outcomes for students. and The Academy will continue the innovative efforts of Mentors of Minorities in Education's Total Learning Cis-Tem (“M.O.M.I.E.’s TLC”) of integrating fun with hands on history lessons that target early learners and inspire parents to use such strategies in their homes. and The Academy is unique in its design as a free and open to the public Montessori school with a cultural empowerment curriculum targeted specifically for under-served children ages 3 to 12. etc. Sure, it's possible that they could end up with a population that's disproportionately high-SES and non-minority, but that in no way requires, obligates, or even permits them to change their programming. They must still fulfill the specifics of their charter which are designed around lower-SES students. They're not targeting, say, Washington Latin families. Which is not to say that Latin families and Shining Star families may not have some overlap at some point (esp. when they have grades in common), but the population subsets which overlap are probably small. Nothing wrong with that. As long as everyone is permitted to apply wherever they like, the interests of the majority are served. Choice is good. |
Anonymous
All, does anyone have any trepidation at sending their child to a brand new school such as this? It sounds exactly what we are looking for, but I'm a bit nervous about our DD being one of the "guinea pigs", as it were. Has anyone else sent their child to a new charter school? What sort of questions or concerns did you have? Thanks 
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Anonymous
But we (the message board) haven't heard anything about who is behind Mundo Verde. I realize that the scores aren't good at DC Bilingual but it was started by (what I've heard is) a respected group, Centronia, that was doing preschool/daycare for a long time. Not the case, as far as I know, for Mundo Verde. And of course there are no test scores, nothing...that said, I can understand the appeal although as another poster asked, it's a bit of a guinea pig situation with all kinds of unknowns. |
Anonymous
We sent a child to Yu Ying a couple of years ago when it was a new school and we're still there and happy with it. That said, it's not as if we sent DC without asking lots of questions first. The school hosted many open houses around town at library branches. They talked about the inquiry curriculum, the program (alternating English and Mandarin every other day), the International Baccalaureate plan, what the goals are in terms of language acquisition, the size and long term goals of the school, etc. The website had background information on all of the teachers. We toured the school while it was being built out. In other words, the school did a good job of putting out as much information as possible so that we knew what we were getting into as much as we could. Once the school opened and over time some of the original plans changed (we thought our children were going to get the same teachers for two years in a row, but that turned out to not be as workable as having the teachers specialize in a particular grade). It was still a gamble, but we liked our odds. All schools are a gamble to some extent. I'm happy we don't have to play the lottery now to get our next DC in.
If you're thrilled where you are, and you don't have any interest in an immersion school then maybe it wouldn't make sense for you. However, if you're in a situation you're not happy with, it's nice to know another option is on the horizon. Contact them. Plan to attend open houses and ask lots of questions. Meet as many people as you can: administrators, teachers, and other parents who are considering the school because all of those human variables will affect the community. Get to know as much as possible about the school so you can make an informed decision. If they're a well-thought out program then they should welcome your questions. And then, of course, report back what you find to DCUM. 
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Anonymous
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PP, thank you so much for this response. It is very helpful, and gives me a lot to think about
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Anonymous
I agree I hate to see school websites and other documents with spelling errors!!!!! The new bilingual school has the misspelling in SEVERAL areas on their website. |
Anonymous
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I also noticed grammar errors in the Spanish section of the Mundo Verde website.
Re the Montessori Academy's targeting of low SES status, don't Bridges and Appletree also target low-SES kids with the idea of closing the achievement gap? Yet they are popular on this board. |